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11/17/2010

On 200 goals

Let's reminisce. March 6, 2007. A lovely spring day in Detroit. (Maybe? I don't know, and I'm too lazy to go back and check the weather reports).

At 12:55 of the second period, the Red Wings break the 2-2 tie, and with assists from Robert Lang and Jiri Hudler, Mathieu Schneider scores his 200th career NHL goal. It's before the video embedding days, but there is a (grainy) video of the goal available on the game summary page: http://www.nhl.com/ice/boxscore.htm?id=2006020996.

Here is the post from this site commemorating the event (posted the following day), complete with quotes goodness:

March 7, 2007

Last night, after his milestone goal #200, Mathieu returned to the bench to be congratulated by his teammate. He was warmly greeted by Niklas Lidstrom, who scored his 200th just days earlier: "I got back to the bench and he said, 'Welcome to the club,' kid. He and I had a friendly bet with Langer at the beginning of the year; one of us wanted to beat Langer to 200, but he killed us, he got there way before both of us." Wait... "kid"? Isn't Lidstrom the kid compared to Mathieu? And more quotes post-game from Mathieu: "It's a special goal, obviously. I've been fortunate to be here on a great team, with great players, to have that opportunity. It's awful tough scoring those goals when you're on other teams. It's been a really good ride for me here in Detroit."

Mathieu had special reasons to score his 200th goal early in the game; his father-in-law sent him a cellphone message: "Get your 200th goal early because I have to watch 'House.'"

Finally, here is a clip for the scrapbook:

Schneider was the team's offensive hero in regulation, registering a goal and an assist. His goal came on a 1980s style rush up the ice. Schneider looked like he was Paul Coffey as he found a seam in the defense and jetted up the ice to score on a high wrist shot for the 200th goal of his carer. Robert Lang fed him the home run pass, but Schneider said it was Kyle Calder who created the play by getting out of the zone quickly to attract a defenseman. (from Kevin Allen of USA Today)

Ahhhh, the good old days. Despite the fact he was wearing that uniform, that video made me smile from ear to ear. I remember listening to the game via the Internet and I hopped out of my seat and squealed.

Of course, there had to be a reason this comes into my head today. A reason enough to actually get together a blog post. B-Rad scored his 200th career NHL goal last night. No end to end rush; no cutting through defensemen like a knife through butter, a la Mathieu Schneider. It was kind of a weird one. No one was sure it was actually a goal or not.

But it was:

And he was happy*:

Congrats Brad Richards. Now, only 23 more goals before you catch up to Mathieu Schneider. =)